Turner Classic Movies is paying tribute to several actors with birthdays in October but we thought it only appropriate to put horror star Bela Lugosi at the top of the list since Halloween is just around the corner. Among the Lugosi features we will be showcasing are White Zombie (1932), The Death Kiss (1933), and The Saint's Double Trouble (1940) in which Bela plays a crook who tries to elude detective Simon Templar (George Sanders). Bela Lugosi was born on October 20, 1882, as Bela Blasko, in the town of Lugos, Hungary. As a young man, he trained for the stage at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts and later performed in plays using the stage name of Arisztid Olt. After the collapse of the Hungarian monarchy in 1918, Lugosi became active in leftist politics but was forced to flee to Germany in 1919 when a new political regime came to power. In 1921 Lugosi emigrated to America where he began a new acting career, winning character parts in plays and films. His interpretation of the title role in the 1927 Broadway stage play of Dracula made his reputation and led to his being cast in the 1931 film version, directed by Tod Browning. Although Lugosi could have enjoyed a film career as prestigious as Lon Chaney's or even Boris Karloff's, he missed his opportunity due to his indiscriminate selection of film roles and his refusal to tone down his Hungarian accent which typecast him as exotic foreigners. Nevertheless, his intense gaze, dark features, and commanding presence were ideal for horror and mystery thrillers and he remains one of the most fascinating actors in that genre. Ironically, he has earned a new legion of fans due to his final film appearance in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956), often referred to as "the worst film ever made," and Tim Burton's affectionate portrait of him as played by Martin Landau in Ed Wood (1994). Our other October birthdays include Cornel Wilde (October 13, 1915), Montgomery Clift (October 17, 1920), George C. Scott (October 18, 1926), Miriam Hopkins (October 18, 1902), and Margaret Dumont (October 20, 1889).